


Noteworthy

by misssara11



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 08:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1772464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misssara11/pseuds/misssara11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose asks a question many have pondered. And gets five possible answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noteworthy

**Author's Note:**

> If this seems familiar, I originally posted this at my LJ in March of 2007

It was an average day in the TARDIS. Well, as average as a day in a time travelling spaceship could be. Rose was sat on the well-weathered captain’s chair, half-reading a magazine picked up on the last trip to see Jackie. The Doctor, glasses on, was fiddling here and there around the central column, mumbling to himself.

Rose looked up and watched him for a bit, smiling to herself. She then had a look around the room. Even though she knew the place like the back of her hand, something caught her eye and held it this time.

“Doctor?”

“Hmmm?” He was still off in his own little world. After a moment, though, he looked up and smiled at her. “Yes, Rose?”

“I was wondering something.”

“Ooooo, could be dangerous, that.” He rounded the column and sat opposite her.

“Shut up!” she nudged him with her foot. “The TARDIS translates everything in my head into English. Everything but your language, that is.”

“Right,” he said a bit confused and wondered where she was going with all this.

“So, what do all the Post-It notes say?” She pointed to one of them.

**1\. Scientific**

“Well, various important things.” He pointed to them as he went. “That one there is a formula I’ve been working on for the past hundred years or so. That one is a theory from one of the top minds of that planet we visited a few moths ago. Trying to prove it wrong. That one is…”

Rose’s eyes glazed over as he went on about physics, trigonometry, rocket science and other things she’d purposely ignored even before she dropped out of school. She was sorry she ever asked.

He turned to her, mistaking her silence for intense interest. “I had no idea you want to learn this stuff. Oh! But this is wonderful. I have just the thing!” He pulled her to her feet.

She was yanked numbly down the hall as he went on about lasers and theorems and experiments. She made a note to never ask him anything ever again.

**2\. Boring**

“Shopping lists.”

“Oh. Okay.”

**3\. Dirty**

He considered it and put it to her straight. “These are the positions we’ve tried. Those are ones we haven’t but I’d like to.”

“Huh. And what about the extra bits on the ones we’ve tried?”

“Well, that means we’ve both liked it; that means you liked it but I didn’t; and that means I liked it but you didn’t.”

“Okay. And that?”

“Oh, um, those are the ones I filmed.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You’ve filmed us having sex?”

“Yes?” He prepared himself for the slap he just knew was coming.

She smiled instead. “Can I see?” She got up and came to stand next to him.

“Well, I think that can be arranged.”

“Now, as for those, can I add to the list?”

“I think you’ll find mine to be quite comprehensive.”

“Still, I’d like to put in some requests.”

“If you insist.”

“I do. How about this one?” She picked one from the arrangement.

“What about it?”

“Can we try it?”

“You mean right now?”

“Yeah.” She looked at him.

He grinned as he shucked off his jacket and ripped off his tie. “You might want to stretch first.”

**4\. Expected**

“What you’d think. Reminders, lists and the like. Need a bit of refresher occasionally. Brain as big as mine, things tend to get lost in the shuffle.”

“It’s not just old age catching up with you?” She poked him in the ribs.

“Hey! You, young lady, should respect your elders.”

“When I see one, I will.” He gave her a look. “Do you have any extra pads of those?”

He got up and shuffled around one of the TARDIS’s many storage spaces. He came back with a stack of the notepads and was busy scribbling on the top one. When he finished, he stuck it to her shoulder. He kept writing and sticking, placing the last one over her mouth.

She peeled them off in the order he had stuck them. They were all written in English. They said things like, ‘Respect your elders’, ‘The Doctor is always right’, ‘Rule #1: Don’t wander off’, and the last one, keeping her somewhat silent, said, ‘Don’t argue with the designated driver’.

He pointed at her. “You told me that.”

She just rolled her eyes.

**5\. Sweet**

“What do you think it says?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking.”

“Then it’s time you learned. Come here.” She stood next to him as he took a blank note and a pen and drew some more of the mysterious swirling symbols. “That is your name.”

She looked at it and then tentatively touched it. “That says ‘Rose’? Didn’t know I was worth all that effort.”

He brushed her hair behind her ear. “You’re worth ten times that.” He dropped his hand and inscribed some more. “That’s me.”

“Of course you’re all complicated.”

“I have many layers, yes.”

“Like an onion.”

“Suppose so, yeah.” He lifted an arm and sniffed. “Smell better, though. Okay, let’s continue.”

When they had free moments he would teach her more. Rose felt a bit like she was learning to walk again, but the Doctor was showing infinite patience and even seemed to enjoy sharing this part of himself.

Her reading comprehension came along at a decent rate. While she wouldn’t be tucking into his equivalent of “War & Peace” anytime soon, she was quite proud of her progress. She had even started writing simple sentences on her own.

She had made a joke once, when she had read something rather advanced, about getting a gold star for her effort. He had taken it to heart, and the notes and various papers laid out all over the TARDIS sparkled.

As a test one day, the Doctor gave her a scavenger hunt with clues written in his native scrawl. To Rose’s delight, next to each discovery was a sticker.

The front of her top was mostly covered when she reached his desk, the next destination. Unsure of what she was looking for, she took a seat and started rooting around. She felt a bit guilty for going through his personal space but the notion left when she acknowledged that he did lead her there on purpose.

She looked down at the paper in her hand and smiled. It was covered in half-finished calculations. Then she looked at the scribbles in the margins and went still. When her head cleared, she pocketed the paper, and then found her clue.

She eventually found him in the garden putting the finishing touches on a picnic. “You found me! Hooray! And as your prize…What?”

She sat next to him and pulled out the paper. “Did you mean this?”

“Those? Just some random math. Not important.” He looked again. “Oh. That.” He turned away. “What if I did?”

She handed him another sheet, written not as elegantly as his but the message was clear. “Do you mean this?” His voice was a bit more eager than he liked.

“Yes.”

“Good.” As their lips met, he made a mental note to leave more of those types of messages for her to ‘accidentally’ find.


End file.
